4 



Fossil Remains. 49 



fifteen per cent, of muriate of soda. That of the upper well is said 

 ^ to contain little or no muriate of lime, or " bitter water," and crys- 

 * tallises into a very white coarse salt. At the well, one mile above 

 the mouth of Sunday creek, on the bank of the Hockhocking, the 

 water is discharged with great force and freedom, rising in " the 

 head," twenty feet above the surface of the river at common stages, 

 and running in a constant stream, at the rate of twelve thousand gal- 

 lons in twenty four hours. At this place, carburetted hydrogen is 

 discharged, when the first veins of salt water are reached. Petro- 

 , leum is not very abundant, but is found in some of the wells after 

 passing the great coal deposit. 



Fossil Remains. 



The sandstone rocks contain many relics of fossil trees, of that 

 ancient and curious family, bearing those rare devices and figures on 

 their bark, so artificial in their appearance as to induce a common 

 belief amongst the ignorant, of their being the work of man, in ages 

 before the flood, and buried by that catastrophe in huge heaps°of 

 sand, since consolidated into rock. The excavations in sandstone 

 rocks have been, as yet, so few and partial, that but a small number 

 have been brought to light, although the strata through this valley 

 are one vast cemetry of the plants of a former creation.^ I have seen 

 some specimens found in quarrying stones for a cellar, or in grading 

 a road, and have heard of many more, proving that there is an abun- 

 dant supply laid up for future geologists, when the country becomes 

 more cultivated, and extensive openings shall be made in the earth. 



On the heads of Shade river, a ^e\Y miles S. W. of Athens, there 

 is a large deposit of Fossil trees, tlie wood being replaced by a dark 



ferruginous silex. 



(page 10 of the wood cuts,) 



was taken from a sandstone rock a ^ew miles still further south, in 

 company with several fresh water univalve shells, and casts resem- 

 bling crayfish. The fossil from which this fragment is taken, was 

 eight or nine feet in length, and from two to three inches in diame- 

 ter, tapering gradually toward the extremity. It was probably seve- 

 ral feet longer, as only a part of it was detached from the rock. So 

 great is the resemblance of the markings on the surface to scales, that 

 the discoverers called it a snake, only they could not find the head 

 or the tail of the monster. It is a sandstone cast, not to be distin- 

 guished in texture from the rock in which it was imbedded. 



Vol. XXIX.— No. I. 7 



